


And Then I Fall

by sherlockholmes_doctorwatson



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Gen, M/M, One Shot, POV Sherlock Holmes, Reichenbach Falls, Reichenbach Feels, Reichenbach-Related, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 06:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2057694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlockholmes_doctorwatson/pseuds/sherlockholmes_doctorwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was right.  Falling is just like flying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Then I Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Just rewatched TRF and I had to write this little angst bomb. title is from the song "Genesis" by Grimes. Enjoy, darlings. kudos and comments are delicious. love and kisses xx

He was right. Falling is just like flying. Nothing hurts and everything is bright and the air burns like fire like ice like hydrochloric acid and it all goes silent. And I am suspended, a marionette on strings for show, for fun, I’ve taken my last step as a free man and now I am waiting for judgment, waiting to know if it’s heaven or hell for me but I suspect where I’m going there will be no salvation. He did promise he would burn me and I can feel it already, where he lit a match and stuffed it down my throat and my heart is crackling and catching alight and now I know, John, I know I have one, because I can feel it dying. I want to scream but my mouth is full of the lies I told you before I took my last step and they squirm like insects, I can’t spit them out and I can’t take them back.

I want your voice in a jar. I want to take it with me into hiding and hear you scream for me at night when I know I won’t sleep, hear you scream my name like you’re begging for your own life and in a way perhaps you are. I never did ask, and now I may never know. Were I the one on the street, I’d give my very soul to be able to catch you.

They see me now, the passersby, the stupid little minds I’m giving you up to protect. You’re worth all of them, and all of the stars besides. They’re looking up and they don’t understand, and they’ll never begin to, and even if I make it out alive in months or years they’ll still never understand. I’m flying or falling or possibly being born again and it’s been years, hasn’t it, because I took the first step when I met you and I’ve been falling ever since and now, now it’s finally time to hit the ground.

There’s the inflatable I arranged for. Hard landing but not injurious. The second body, my double, planted until the biker can knock you over, John, and I’m sorry about your head. The curtain’s rising now and I must take my place.

 _He’s my friend._ My heart is ablaze and my stomach is sick and everything is grey, the rain on my face is cold and you look so lost. Squash ball under the arm, you take my pulse and I pray to God it doesn’t work and you’ll feel the flutter in my veins and wipe the blood from my eyes and bring me back to life but your hand drops, and I’m on the gurney and they’re taking me away from you and there is a charred hole where my heart was and I’m cursing him and I’m cursing myself and you’re fading from me, John, I need you now and you’re fading…

 

“The stuff that you wanted to say, but didn’t say it…”

“Yeah.”

“Say it now.”

“No. Sorry, I can’t.”

“Yes you can.”

_Rain beating on the window._

“Sh—Sherlock…”

_Thunder._

“He was…my best friend, he was…he…”

_Rain falls harder._

“…I loved him. I loved him, and I never…oh, Jesus…”

_John breaks down._

 

He doesn’t know I’m watching. Mrs. Hudson’s left him alone. Tired eyes, hasn’t slept. Favouring his leg again, just barely but I can see. I can see everything. I can see his heart.

“Um…mm, you told me once that you weren’t a hero. Um, there were times I didn’t even think you were human, but let me tell you this—you were the best man and the most human human being that I’ve ever known, and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. So. There.”

I want to lick the words out of his mouth before he says them. The wind blows through the hole in my chest. He touches the headstone and I want his fingers on my wrist again to feel my pulse and feel my body beating and know that I am alive and that I am living to run with him again someday.

“I was so alone, and I owe you so much.”

Give me your soul. Give me your breath and your scars and your sweat and your blood. Give me all of you, I will consume you. Give me your heart and I will sew it into the hole in my chest and I will be a good man for you.

“Please, there’s just one more thing—one more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me.”

Anything for you.

“Don’t…be…dead. Would you do that, just for me? Just stop it. Stop this.”

I will stop the world turning, John, and I will stop the sun setting and the grass growing and it all for you, but I can’t come back yet. Not yet. Miracles take time but I promise I will never let a moment pass where I don’t take another step closer to you again because I am not a patient man, and I know you will not wait forever but please—wait just long enough. You’re crying and I am not strong, I am halfway from behind this tree already.

But you’re leaving. God, you’re leaving, and my body aches and my eyes sting and I can feel everything I taught myself to filter away, polluting me, corrupting me, rusting my mind and the world is so much colder than I ever knew. I don’t cry but I am spinning out of control and fumbling for cigarettes and you are very nearly out of sight and I can’t catch my breath and God, John, don’t go. I remember who I was before you.

I don’t want to be that man again.


End file.
